The invention relates generally to sound movie cameras and, more particularly, it relates to a sound movie camera having a housing provided with a microphone electrically connected to the sound recording device of the camera.
For some time now, films in the form of so-called Super-8 Cassettes have been available on the market for use by amateurs; such cassettes are substantially easier to operate than the previous normal 8 mm sound films. The taking of pictures by means of amateur sound movie cameras that employ the aforementioned cassettes, has nonetheless certain drawbacks. It is, for example, disturbing that the noise of the running camera is picked up by the microphone and recorded on the sound tracks of the film. It is possible to reduce the undesirable influence of the camera noise by placing the microphone a relatively large distance from the camera during the picture taking operation.
It has been also proposed to mount the microphone on the arm of the camera operator in such a manner that during the picture taking operation it is directed in the acoustically desirable direction and is spaced at such a distance from the camera that the disturbing noises transmitted from the camera are negligible (German Offenlegungsschrift No. 24 32 136). Even if this solution results in a very good acoustical separation, it has nevertheless the disadvantage that the microphone and the camera are completely separate pieces and that they there tend to be misplaced by the operator.
In order to keep the camera and the microphone together, sound movie cameras have been devised where the microphone is mounted on the body of the camera and telescopically extendable therefrom (magazine "Photo" 1976, II, page 32, 34, and German Pat. No. 7,628,266.5 De.). The disadvantage of this camera-microphone combination is that the microphone arranged on the camera body makes the whole structure bulky and difficult to manipulate.
In another sound movie camera the microphone is fixedly mounted on the free end of a forwardly directed and downwardly inclined handle of the camera (Kodak Ektasound 240, Kodak Consumer Markets Division, Rochester, New York 14650). This arrangement has the disadvantage that the microphone is immovable relative to the camera body and therefore optimum use of it can be made only in special picture taking situations.